NIAGARA FALLS — When Didier Pasquette walks a tightrope in Niagara Falls on Sunday he will consider the effort a work of art.

The three performances by the Frenchman, who has walked hundreds of feet in the air with notables that include the Flying Wallendas, will be less about defying danger then about becoming an artistic extension of the landscape.

Pasquette will walk a tightrope three times Sunday as part of an unusual several-month-long art exhibition involving 100 local and international artists in locations throughout the region.

Bruce Ferguson, an international consultant for the exhibition who brought Pasquette here to open the event explains the tightrope walker’s artistic vision this way: “Pasquette draws a single line in space and activates it with his own body.”

“He reframes the landscape so that you look at it differently,” he added.

In Niagara Falls, Didier had hoped to walk across one of the bridges but was unable to get permission to do so, so his tightrope walk will occur in the street, where he said, “I’m more near to the people. It’s more interesting for me this contact with the people.”

The tightrope will be stretched over Old Falls Street at Prospect Street, about 50 feet in the air without a net.

Pasquette will walk across the rope at noon, 1 p.m. and 2 p.m.

Ferguson brought the tight rope artist to the region to help launch the “Beyond/In Western New York 2010,” an arts event which will be held at 27 venues and public spaces throughout Western New York, including the Castellani Art Museum at Niagara University.

Thursday night Pasquette was in downtown Buffalo walking a rope stretched between the two Statue of Liberty sculptures atop the Liberty Bank Building.

“The two statues have a very nice symbol for me,” the Frenchman said, noting that the statues represents a symbol of the friendship between France and America, and are a “symbol of freedom” as well.

The walk between the two statues was about 150 feet and about 300 feet in the air.

Pasquette’s upcoming tightrope walk will by no means be the first in Niagara Falls.

In 1859, Jean Francois Gravelet, who billed himself as the Great Blondin, became the first of many tightrope walkers to traverse high over the Niagara Gorge. In subsequent trips, Blondin crossed the rope on a bicycle, walked blindfolded, pushed a wheelbarrow and crossed the gorge carrying his manager on his back, according to the Niagara Parks Commission website, niagaraparks.com.

Mayor Paul Dyster, who led efforts to bring Pasquette to Niagara Falls, said it was his hope the city could get more involved in “Beyond/In WNY” in future years. The city provided $14,000 to obtain the tightrope walker with $2,000 of that coming from the Niagara Tourism and Convention Corp., because “for a very modest sum we were able to be a part of this very high profile event.”

Dyster also noted that the city’s participation in the future could include artistic benefits such as temporary exhibits of large artworks in the Falls Street Mall.

Following a press conference for Pasquette at the Albright Knox Art Gallery Thursday morning, a preview of that gallery’s participation in the exhibition included colorful contemporary work from around the region and the world. Some of the artwork included an emerald green-colored outdoor sculpture called “Karma,” depicting people standing on each other’s shoulders, created by a Korean artist. That sculpture will remain at the gallery after the close of the exhibition. Other artwork included a video exploring an Icelandic search for the sublime from an Ithaca artist and a bees wax-tile lined foyer of what appear to be ancient symbols.

Some of the many other exhibits being displayed at galleries throughout the area include “Artpark: 1974-84,” which will open at the University at Buffalo Art Gallery with a free reception from 1 to 6 p.m. Saturday. The exhibit is billed as exploring the “halcyon days at Artpark,” when artists came from around the world to create “quirky, complex, brilliant, challenging works of art intended to last a short time.”

The Castellani exhibit, which opens with a reception at 2 p.m. Saturday, will feature the work of artists Elizabeth Gemperlein of Batavia; Adam Weekley and David Mitchell of Buffalo; and Jennifer Lefort of Toronto, Ontario. Their works explore the fragility and triumphant temperament of nature and personal expression.

For a complete list of art exhibits in Beyond/In WNY 2010 visit beyondinwny.org. Most exhibits will remain open through the end of the year.